the district attorney is elected and the county itself is conservative, has a traditional social views, views on social issues, and once this matter got to the newspaper that these two men had been arrested, they were going to challenge the constitutionality of the texas law, it became very politically difficult for the harris county district attorney's office to back off as a prosecution. they were quoted in the paper as saying, that sort of e qvc kuwaiting on the case saying it might be a bad law. we don't have any choice about what laws to enforce. the best way to get a bad law off the books is to enforce it. that's exactly what they ended up doing. it does turn out, by the way, that one of the early prosecutors in one of the lower courts in texas was herself closeted lesbian at the time. she didn't -- she could have entered a dismissed the prosecution or asked the judge to dismiss it and she did not do so. she said she was required to allow the case to proceed she didn't have any discretion in the matter. >> host: in the end the state was willing to defend a law. why don't we take